I don't claim to be a "complicated" desktop user, from what I have seen though, there are little things that make people switch back to Windows... it is those funky custom smilies in MSN; that other super cheap prepaid VoIP plan that they have joined that happens to use their own proprietary protocol and client software that only runs on Windows; they brought a new web cam without any checking with compatibility with the OS... it is the "what is an OS" type of people, and it is just getting them to use Linux, it is not even BSD.

Do we actually want those people to use Unix? When I created this thread, I didn't intend for it to become this huge discussion, and people have raised a lot of good points. One of them, which I believe was implied through the criticism of OS X, is that if there were to be Unix for the masses, then it would have to sacrifice or hide much of the Unix functionality, like OS X has done. Yes, I love OS X, but it did take some work to reveal much of the Unix functionality that I'm so used to. If someone can happily fulfill his or her needs with Windows, then there is no point even introducing that person to Unix. The keyword there is happily, which implies that that person doesn't care too much about the operating system. That's not the audience for Unix, and it should never be, because it requires too many changes in Unix.

That's entirely up to the individual to decide, I don't tend to evangelise Unix nor Linux myself for that matter, but many times I see other people try to do so.

Anyway, what I was trying to say was that there were no one big killer application so to speak for "the desktop", it is one or two of the little things that the average joe tend to taken for granted... this was a response to the question of what are the "complicated" features of a desktop, which I would say, "none", it is just MS's monopoly market what a lot of people didn't even know about.

Yes, I love OS X, but it did take some work to reveal much of the Unix functionality that I'm so used to. If someone can happily fulfill his or her needs with Windows, then there is no point even introducing that person to Unix. The keyword there is happily, which implies that that person doesn't care too much about the operating system. That's not the audience for Unix, and it should never be, because it requires too many changes in Unix.

Personally I don't care what OS people use, as long as they are happy with it, as long as it doesn't drive me crazy, and as long as it doesn't cause problems for me. For example, 90-98% of software I need works under FreeBSD.

10-15% would or might be probmatic to use on a non POSIX-related system.

If it would be the otherway around, I'd bloody well have to use something else for my OS, port the apps, or become someone who virtually only runs code they wrote, which is far from practical these days.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oko

forum for Unix enthusiasts (OK there are few professionals around here but most of us a hobbyist like me).

Quote:

Originally Posted by drhowarddrfine

Do we have a poll showing that?
Actually, global server usage is 23% for Win servers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oko

No I do not. You are welcome to start one and prove me wrong.

I've debating starting such a poll out of curiosity for a few weeks... but have not (yet) out of consideration that it might be taken rudely by some. Maybe it is time?

That's another program that lets you interpret the chromatogram. That is the output of the instrument -- you still have to get the data somehow. That's what Chromeleon does (among other things). There are lots of other programs that do the same thing, but this one is pretty good.

Honestly I think this is a dead end for this discussion. The point more was that there are many applications that together have a large markets where there is no *nix, or OSX in this case, penetration. The chromatography instruments are one example. There are many others -- it just happens that I know this area.

Personally I don't care what OS people use, as long as they are happy with it, as long as it doesn't drive me crazy, and as long as it doesn't cause problems for me. For example, 90-98% of software I need works under FreeBSD.

10-15% would or might be probmatic to use on a non POSIX-related system.

If it would be the otherway around, I'd bloody well have to use something else for my OS, port the apps, or become someone who virtually only runs code they wrote, which is far from practical these days.

I don't care either, so long as they are happy with it. Also, I've noticed much like you, although you only mentioned FreeBSD, that a strong majority of software that I need is available in some usable form on Unix operating systems. I can go from FreeBSD to some Linux distribution to NetBSD to Solaris to Mac OS X and still fulfill my needs. I don't even see Flash as a major obstacle. I need Flash just to watch Youtube videos occasionally, and swfdec plays those very well.

I thought that a desktop computer was a computer capable of running Web-browser, an email client, and an office suite + little bit of multimedia.

What exactly a desktop is has been discussed with some interest. The best I can tell is that a "desktop" is what people do with their own local CPU running their own local programs, and that this varies a *lot*. And that definition is not that clean either. Your definition fits more or less in the "Is Linux ready for the desktop" sort of threads, but I think it is insufficient.

Quote:

You join this thread by arguing that any Unix based application is incapable of solving PDEs

Now be fair. I responded to the "Windows is a consumer OS" comment. The rest flowed from there, and I stressed workflow integration when irritations ran high.

Quote:

P.S. By the way my grandfather was for 70 years ( he lived to be 87) producer
of fine Serbian wines and the plum brandy called Shljivovica. I do not recall
him ever needing a calculator let alone Desktop computer to manufacture those

I don't doubt that he made great wine. There is a long history and art in the business. The business has changed, though. Did he use yeasts classified by UC Davis or PSU? Everyone here does. Did he use drip irrigation? Did he have moisture sensors in the ground the meter water flow? Which vine pruning method did he use and why? Did he measure Brix, or did he do it by taste?

You would get a kick out of visiting Mondavi in Napa as an example of how the business has changed. Yes, they do produce good wines in addition to their better-known bulk ones. I don't think use of temperature-controlled, stainless-steel fermenters was common in the older days, but they are now. It is a pretty high tech business.

And yes, I know slivovic well. Quite a different product from wine, but quite enjoyable. I'm thinking of having a go at it from a very productive plum tree we have.

I will still argue that Windows is a consumer operating system while Unix is the professional system. The argument is not based on who uses which or what software runs on either. The thought behind the argument is that Windows was created for the every day user. Made simple for the every man user at the expense of functionality and stability. Sure, many top-notch professional, scientific programs run on Windows because Windows is everywhere and people think Windows is the only computer to design programs for. Windows desktop is not designed for the professional environment. I mean, just look at it! But even as Dr. J has said, people who know how things work do not like Windows as an OS. Windows, in fact, becomes an eventual destination for marketing reasons alone, whether for money or because people look at you funny if your program doesn't run on Win. The reality is, Windows is more difficult to code for, is more expensive to code for (cost of tools and the OS), and it's a moving target (OS changes, documentation changes, documentation moves and can't be found!).

Sorry for the lack of paragraphs but I'm bouncing between things to do today.

As far as the aforementioned poll goes, I think it should be carefully worded. Do we count professional IT people who only use FreeBSD as a hobby as a hobbyist? How do you rank someone who can outcode Brian Kernighan but is a carpenter by day?

I do not recall my exact registration number but I though that this was couple months old forum? Are you saying that it exists for much longer than that?

Ah, see, you are new around here. daemonforums is the descendant/continuation/fork of bsdforums.org, which is where most of us (being members of this board) came from. DrJ has shown himself (on bsdforums) to be quite competent in Unix stuff, as well as Windows stuff.

I guess, without the bsdforums history, it would seem that he is a Windows-user pretending to be a Unix user. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

What exactly a desktop is has been discussed with some interest. The best I can tell is that a "desktop" is what people do with their own local CPU running their own local programs, and that this varies a *lot*. And that definition is not that clean either. Your definition fits more or less in the "Is Linux ready for the desktop" sort of threads, but I think it is insufficient.

I like your definition very much. On the another hand do you think in 5 to 10 years people will run their own local programs except for Unix geeks?
I am not so sure. Already today at least 20-30% Linux (not Windows users) use web-based email services like Gmail instead of email clients. At least Gmail unlike Hotmail offers people to download the mail via
IMAP server. You can do text processing using Google documents without having any programs installed locally.
In all fairness, I have to repeat something that was said before. 80% of time 80% of Desktop computers run screen saver and those work pretty well on any operating system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrJ

And yes, I know slivovic well. Quite a different product from wine, but quite enjoyable. I'm thinking of having a go at it from a very productive plum tree we have.

I see that you are about to cross to the dark-side of the force I have to worn you though. The distillation of the hard liquor is monopolized in U. S. and is illegal for all practical purposes. Last time I was distilling
Slivovica my friends form Cleveland had very hard time convincing police that I am brewing famous Serbian beer.

Best,
OKO

P. S. I have to correct myself. My grandfather produced VINE and he had no
clue what is wine as he never had the desktop computer

For me, I've always felt that UNIX is designed by developers for the developers and the rest, is just business. If I recall, didn't the great inventors create unix for their own reasons at first?

The groff software that DrJ uses, isn't it very much a descendent of business?

I'm very sure that the early roff and things could have been implemented on whatever DECs OS offerings were for the various PDP-* microcomputers were in use but did the softwares creator want to do that?

Various UNIX systems provide better development tools then any other system I've encountered, while I'm sure many people here would have a _lot_ more weight behind making such a statement then I can claim. The fact still remains, for me nothing has been as good!

A real system should be self sustaining shouldn't it? FreeBSD for example (aside from no svn client, yet) is fully capable of being used to develop software built for users and working on the system itself.

Windows was created by business for business reasons. They wanted to make money, they didn't give a damn about operating system design -- 23 years later it still shows (imho).

The average home user was probably lucky to have an internet connection once upon a time, let a long a bloody computer. Now, why should they need a Ph.D. to use a computer?

My first exposure to computers was via MS-DOS 2.0 on my brothers Tandy 1000, until I started "poking around" a Windows 98 machine many years later, I always considered computers a thing for people in lab coats not Joe blow from cocomo.

UNIX is beautifully designed according to my sense of engineering, because that is what the developers made it and no one else could have done that.

Windows? Is just what sells to the masses.

An operating system for people that don't know computers, don't want to know computers, and don't care about "Source Code" because most of them don't know what it is, don't want to know what it is, and can pay someone else to make the software they want -- as long as in the end it does what they want without more trouble then they care to pay for.

I guess you could say that I view unix as a system for developers and windows as a commercial product.

To me, professional usage means taking care of the business and craft that separates one from people outside of the profession, for which they are usually paid for doing.

A carpenter knows a lot about working with wood, I don't know jack about it, things relating to carpentry makes that person unique in ways that I am not and gives them a bond to others of like-mind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottro

A poll of how many Windows servers there are on the Internet? Or who is a professional?

It doesn't mean that much. I am a professional, but I don't consider myself more knowledgeable than many who aren't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drhowarddrfine

As far as the aforementioned poll goes, I think it should be carefully worded. Do we count professional IT people who only use FreeBSD as a hobby as a hobbyist? How do you rank someone who can outcode Brian Kernighan but is a carpenter by day?

Well, I suppose a proper (read fair) distinction would be are you into computers because you want to or because you are paid too.

Some "professionals" love computers. Others, well want to set sale for greener pa$ture$ in the end or maybe work on their golfing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ninjatux

I don't even see Flash as a major obstacle. I need Flash just to watch Youtube videos occasionally, and swfdec plays those very well.

I've mostly had internet access since WebTV and in probably 10 or more years, I have never really *needed* flash for anything. Sure I enjoy the ability to watch the YouTube videos friends share with me but I only click a very small group of them and can feed most through MPlayer ;-)

Websites that require flash for general usage, can kiss my rebel... eh wait, I can't say that here -- just look up Doc Holiday in Wyatt Earp ;-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oko

So what is the "complicated" desktop? I thought that a desktop computer was a computer capable of running Web-browser, an email client, and an office suite + little bit of multimedia.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrJ

What exactly a desktop is has been discussed with some interest. The best I can tell is that a "desktop" is what people do with their own local CPU running their own local programs, and that this varies a *lot*. And that definition is not that clean either.

What Oko has described is actually what most people I know use their computers for, aside from work/school related stuff and "pleasure" (games, p2p, porn, etc).

My mother only uses her computer for Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, probably doesn't know what they are, and wouldn't care to hear about it either -- as long as it does what she needs, she's happy.

And I'm happy as long as she doesn't try my patience to often....

No operating system should be considered within terms of the/a "Desktop" imho, just a desktop in the sense that people tend to use it at a desk ;-)

I use my computer for things different from my mother and friends use theirs, Oko uses his differently then mine, DrJ uses his differently then Oko and so on.

People can get blue in the face talking about "desktop" stuff and still keep going, it just doesn't serve any real point these days unless you are selling pre-made desktops !

I see that you are about to cross to the dark-side of the force I have to worn you though. The distillation of the hard liquor is monopolized in U. S. and is illegal for all practical purposes. Last time I was distilling
Slivovica my friends form Cleveland had very hard time convincing police that I am brewing famous Serbian beer.

I've not looked into that part of it yet, either on legal or hardware bases. I designed stills for separating crude oil as an undergrad, so that part is easy enough. How exactly to do a low-cost one I have to look into.

Regarding the law, yes, I have to look into that too. CA does permit small-scale production of wine (we have Zinfandel planted that will be fermented in the fall) and beers, but distillates may well be different.

I guess you could say that I view unix as a system for developers and windows as a commercial product.

I agree with that, though in the early 1990s there was a push to make Unix commercial too. My impression is that Cutler and his crew did a very good job on the NT kernel, but that it is now rather dated. The "update" to Vista is a mixed blessing. Many of the other "features" were added to ensure a large market penetration. Many of these things you can remove (like balloon help), but other things cannot, like the strict tying of the OS to its original hardware (without a call to MS at least), the infernal registry, limiting the desktop to a single user, and various and sundry interface quirks that can't really be changed.

Regarding the earlier comment on stability and API, I've not had any troubles with W2K or XP stability, and by and large they are more stable than my FreeBSD desktops. There is one glaring exception: XP crashes when you use a network printer, and you lose a connection anywhere along the way. I had a dodgy network cable, and rather than store the output until the device becomes available, the computer crashes. That ins mind-numbingly stupid. On the BSD side, the system itself is very good (if you overlook the early 5.x releases). However, X11 recently has not been particularly stable, and Wine causes occasional crashes. Other things do too. It is not particularly heinous, and it recovers gracefully, but it really is less stable than my W2K development box, which has never, ever crashed.

On APIs: Windows may change it a lot, but they bend over backwards to ensure backwards compatibility. I can still run Office 2K on the latest XP box. Solaris has done the same traditionally, but you can't on BSD or Linux. There is no equivalent of a gettext upgrade.

Quote:

What Oko has described is actually what most people I know use their computers for, aside from work/school related stuff and "pleasure" (games, p2p, porn, etc).

That may be, but I think the "desktop" discussion suffer from this assumption. Most people in that camp would need Flash, yet many here say they do not. My granddaughter spends countless hours using a home-design CAD program; that certainly is a desktop application. Many people connect to work from home, and do work "stuff" at home. scottro needs a virtual machine to use VPN for that; others do stock trading.

How people use computers really varies a lot. Certainly OSS should cover the common uses like those mentioned, but to restrict what a desktop might be to only those applications seems rather limiting.

Regarding the earlier comment on stability and API, I've not had any troubles with W2K or XP stability, and by and large they are more stable than my FreeBSD desktops. There is one glaring exception: XP crashes when you use a network printer, and you lose a connection anywhere along the way. I had a dodgy network cable, and rather than store the output until the device becomes available, the computer crashes. That ins mind-numbingly stupid. On the BSD side, the system itself is very good (if you overlook the early 5.x releases). However, X11 recently has not been particularly stable, and Wine causes occasional crashes. Other things do too. It is not particularly heinous, and it recovers gracefully, but it really is less stable than my W2K development box, which has never, ever crashed.

Wow, just wow. There's no arguing with that. Windows 2000, XP, and Vista have all been unstable for me. Some Linux distros were horribly unstable, but the BSDs are rock-solid.

I share DrJ's experience, I have never had any real stability problems with Windows 2000 or Windows XP ... Only when machines are infested with "malware" or certain other appications (i.e. Norton/Symantec antivirus) do systems become unstable.
I never used Vista or any of the Windows servers, so I can't comment on those.

__________________
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.

I don't think stability is an issue for either BSD or Windows. I can't speak about Linux or Solaris, since I have just not used them enough.

For some numbers, the dev box has never crashed on either BSD of W2K. My BSD server does maybe once every nine months or so. My main box, about once every four months. All of these are older, dual CPU, ECC/Reg, SCSI drive boxes. The main data acquisition computer is a consumer-grade XP unit; it crashes maybe once every four months too (Ethernet cables willing).

I don't think this is anything to worry about.

Then again, I have not gotten a virus on Windows for over six years, so maybe I am just lucky.

What I love about unix is its simplicity meaning it treats every object as a file and its complexity providing the user great flexibility to do one task in many different ways. You can run it with a gui or not depending how powerful your hardware specs. Can tweak it with a couple of keystrokes and I hate clicking the mouse too many times.

The distillation of the hard liquor is monopolized in U. S. and is illegal for all practical purposes.

It's not monopolized, but the amount of licensing regulations makes it quite prohibitive for the average person to get into - and also hard to get into even if you wanted to do it as a profession (last time I priced it in Ohio, several years ago, I think it was about $250,000 just for a commercial winery - more for distillation). And while you can make a limited supply of beer and wine for personal use, it is illegal to distill liquor - either evaporative or fractional distillation - in any amount without proper licensing.

-- now back to your regularly scheduled sobering debate.

__________________
And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)